How People Brag: 5 Sneaky Ways People Brag About Themselves – Part 2

Now that you know about the Bragging Contest, and you know that you have to enter, how do you know when people are playing? To know when it happens, learn what the main types of bragging contests revolve around and then learn to identify when they occur.

Types of Bragging Contests

The Bragging Contest is all about improving your reputation. The key to understanding when these contests happen is to understand what the group values and thinks is important. This will help you see what type of reputation you have to build up. Every group values something different. Know what the group values so you can improve your reputation in those areas. Below, I have listed the main contests that happen in the 2 key groups of your life: Work and Friends & Family. Using these contests as examples, you can start to figure out the contests going on in your groups.

Work
What is valued: Your reputation at work revolves around how you help the company achieve its goals. Everything related to what you do and how you accomplish your work is important to your reputation.

Key Contests:

1. I am a Hard Worker
2. I have Great Ideas
3. I am Smart
4. I Am A Leader
5. I take Initiative
6. I have Skills – These skills can be in different areas such as “I’m a Great Developer,” “I’m a great Designer,” “I’m a great Salesperson,” etc. Just remember, the more skills you have, the better.
7. I do Great Work
8. I am Dependable
9. The Senior people trust me and like me

Friends & Family
What is valued: With friends & family, the values are really different. With them, it’s all about the softer things and what you give and receive.

Key Contests:

1. I can be Counted On / I am Reliable
2. I am Fun
3. I am Generous
4. I am Loyal
5. I give Good Advice
6. I Share
7. I am not Judgmental
8. I am a Good Listener
9. I am Thoughtful

You are probably part of many different groups. Their values and the resulting Bragging Contests will most likely be a combination of the things above. If you aren’t sure what those values are, start by figuring out what the contests are.

Identifying the Bragging Contests
The trick to identifying the contests is to know the different ways people are bragging. People brag all the time. Some people are obvious and you will know right away that they are trying to brag. Others are more subtle and you may not know until the contest is over.

Pay attention to how people brag so you can enter the Bragging Contests.

Here are 5 ways that people brag about themselves. By learning how other people brag, you can start to identify when the contests are happening . This way, not only can you enter them yourself, but you can also use these methods to start your own contests.

How People Brag

1. Direct Brag: This is the most obvious brag to spot because the person just tells you his brag without hiding it behind anything. A lot of times, you will hear the name of the contest in the person’s brag.

Examples:
• “I have Great Ideas” Bragging Contest: A person who says it directly would say “I have so many great ideas that my team never knows which one to choose.”
• “I’m a Great Salesperson” Bragging Contest: A direct person would say “I’m such a great salesperson, I brought in 5 clients this month.”

How to spot this brag: It’s really easy to spot the brag since a person will just use the name of the contest in his brag. So, “I have great ideas blah, blah, blah.”

2. Not Really Related Brag: This is when someone takes the main topic of conversation and turns it into a brag by relating the topic to something they did. The topic could be anything and the person could use that topic to reference an accomplishment or something he is good at.

Examples:
• “I do Great Work” Bragging Contest: Here, imagine a group of people talking about launching a new shopping website. A bragger could insert his brag by saying something like “I launched a social network website last year. My social network website was really successful and I created all of the important features.”
• “I have Good Taste” Bragging Contest: Here, people may be talking about someone’s fantastic new jeans from Macy’s. A person will then try to brag by saying something like “I just bought a great shirt from Neiman Marcus.”

How to spot this brag: In these 2 examples, the bragger took the topic of conversation, but then used it to talk about himself. You can spot this brag if you hear someone go off the main topic of conversation and say something about himself that is not related to what everyone was talking about. The first person talked about how he built a social network website, something that wasn’t related to the shopping website. The second person talked about buying their shirt from Neiman Marcus, something not related to the jeans from Macy’s.

3. Feelings Brag: This is when a person talks about how they feel and inserts a brag at the end. By talking about their feelings, other people are thrown off and the brag comes unexpectedly.

Example:
• “I take Initiative” Bragging Contest: A group of people could be talking about their weekend. The bragger could say something like “I feel so tired. I hardly got any rest. I was doing this new project all weekend that the boss didn’t even ask for.”
• “I give Good Advice” Bragging Contest: A group of people could be talking about a friend who went through a hard time. A bragger could tell his friends the following: “I am so happy she took my advice and made some changes in her life.”

How to Spot: Listen up for people who talk about their feelings, but also say something about themselves. In the first example, the bragger used his own feelings “I feel tired” and extended those feelings to a brag about how he took initiative. In the second example, the bragger did something similar by telling everyone he was “so happy” because he gave advice to their friend. Using feelings is harder to spot since it is masked by someone’s feelings. To hear the brag, you have to keep listening past the feelings and see if the person tries to add something extra about those feelings.

4. Share Brag: This happens when the bragger shares something about himself, but within that something are details to show how good that thing is. Though it is bragging, it sounds less like bragging and more like being open and friendly. This type of brag occurs in all types of Bragging Contests.

Example:
• “I am Generous” Bragging Contest: A group of friends could be talking about an upcoming birthday and how to best celebrate this birthday for their friend. A bragger could easily “share” how he bought a fantastic present for his friend and say something like “I just bought my present. It’s this beautiful Louis Vuitton wallet.”

How to spot: In the example above, the bragger shared how he had already purchased the gift.  He shares the brand of the gift so people will know how expensive it was. By sharing this piece of information, he has now conveyed how generous he is. However, since it was in the context of sharing what he did, it doesn’t look like he is bragging at all. Instead it just sounds like he is sharing his plans for celebrating his friend’s birthday. This style is a lot harder to spot since it is masked in the form of sharing.

5. Compliments Brag: This final style is the hardest to detect. This happens when the bragger gives a compliment, but within the compliment is hidden a brag about himself. It is heard like a compliment and taken like a compliment, but people also remember the brag.

Example: “I Know Many Important People” Bragging Contest. An easy way this occurs is when the bragger compliments a person, but references someone else in the process. She could say “Congratulations on your success. I heard from that you signed a big client.”

How to spot: Spot this one, by listening for something about the bragger within a compliment. In the above example, the bragger has now given a compliment, but also indicated that she heard the news from an important person. This is a subtle way of bragging about the important person (Mr. VIP) that she knows, but is given in the form of a compliment so it is much harder to detect.

There are other ways that people brag besides the 5 I describe above. The key to discovering them is to pay attention to what people are saying and figure out whether or not there is a brag hidden in there. Listen for times when people are talking about themselves. Watch how other people brag so you can copy them or learn what not to do when you are playing in the contests.

Knowing the types of contests and identifying how they occur are 2 very important parts of playing the Bragging Contest. Now that you know when to play, you have to learn how to win. Winning requires a whole new level of understanding. To win requires you to understand who the judges are and tactics for winning. I will cover that in the next 2 articles. Stay tuned…